


Brushstroked Whispers

by LucifurMacomb



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Answers to Questions no one had, Day drinking, Drinking, Gen, Inspired by Art, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-04-23 04:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14324217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucifurMacomb/pseuds/LucifurMacomb
Summary: Long ago, before the plague, before the child-Empress, before the flooding had come and gone, was Anton Sokolov.---Often people look at Sokolov's paintings and appreciate their majesty - but how often do we consider him sitting to paint them?





	1. Artist's Block

Long ago, before the plague, before the child-Empress, before the flooding had come and gone, was Anton Sokolov.

Royal Physician to his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Euhorn Kaldwin, Sokolov was noted by many to be witty and brilliant, while at the same time people knew full well of his galavanting across the brothels and stys of Dunwall.  
Yet his skill was known beyond renown - bested by few, and held in high account by the droves. His skill as a painter was by no means the best in the Isles, but his style, so unique and precise, was something to behold. His brushstrokes earned him more coin than  three lifetimes of a wealthy man’s savings. He had climbed the ladder of society with ease, accumulating ranks and titles many would kill for: a widely-known painter, sculptor, scientist, inventor, writer, world traveler, and philosopher. He smugly overlooked his business partners, often enjoying to take his demonstrations to a much more “invigorating” limit.

The Tyvian sat in his armchair, measuring up his easel with brush in hand. What would he paint today? Despite the numerous clientele demanding him, today he wished to paint something for himself, not a masterpiece for the young man - but something to test his artistic reverie. Casually he sipped from a glass of whiskey despite the early hour, the sun barely having reached its highest point in the day.  
Sokolov had a drink for every occasion: Tyvian Brandy for socialising, Tyvian Red to help him sleep, Ale for theorising, Gristol Cider for philosophical query, Orbon Rum for love making, and Mulberry Mead for all those aches and pains.  
But whiskey? Whiskey was his creative aperitif. Fresh ideas bloomed when liquor would pass his lips, a steady flow of well informed decisions made on the rim of a glass.  
Poses filled his head, his memories danced briefly on the figure drawing classes of the Tyvian Arts Academy, he split a grin at the fond nostalgia of days long passed. Fonder still at his recollection of the models, but now wasn't the time for that. Dispelling an urge of procrastination he planned a palette in his head. Earthly tones - a stern figure - a soldier perhaps? Perhaps a veteran between wives whose last meal was less than favourable…  
He picked up a pencil and lightly drafted his thoughts quickly and neatly onto the canvas.  
He took another sip. No, no.  
A veteran, what was he thinking? A younger man, stuck between a rock and a hard place. His wife at home, being torn apart by the lover he'd made at sea. Maybe the lover was a man - maybe the lover was a mermaid! Character!  
Sokolov cussed as he finished his tumbler of whiskey. All his paintings had character. Portraits or otherwise. He couldn't just throw anyone down on a page, let alone his canvas. They needed to be someone, had done something, were more than the two dimensional image he doomed them to be.  
Yes… yes! That was it, of course! Not two people but two ideas. The man is stuck between the past and the future - void of the present, after all there is no such thing as the present, Sokolov thought.  
The man was unable to let go of the past, but unwilling to step into the fog of tomorrow.  
A pose, a place of mind, a colour scheme - all the basics were aligning themselves nicely. But their ought to be something more… there was something… missing? It was possible, he considered, that even he could leave something out.  
What was it? Artists block? Surely not! Not for the great Anton Sokolov!

 

But still. 

He had the idea, but putting the pencil to canvas: there was an emptiness that needed to be filled. A twinge of anger lapsed across his brow. How dare this happen to him, Anton Sokolov, on one of his days of peace!  
He stubbornly placed his pencil down and scratched his beard. Perhaps the easel was in the wrong spot, completely throwing off his work flow and train of thought? Perhaps his desk was too cluttered; cluttered desk, cluttered mind?  
A new idea might work?  
Forgetting the canvas for now, he took to a sketchbook and began to doodle.  
Sokolov hated doodling, he felt it was beneath him. He'd only enjoy drawing if it was a blueprint, otherwise he'd want a decent product. Never could he draw a stickman and call it artistic expression.  
The clock chimed the hour of ten, he huffed and rolled down his shirt sleeves, adjusting his suspenders he pulled on his tweed jacket.  
He was getting nowhere. Despite creative juices flowing he was stuck on the cliff face of human invention. The canvas mocked him as he fastened his cufflinks and prepared to leave.  
Sokolov was not sure where he intended to go. He thought he might just go for a walk. Alas, much like the common cold, he had no cure available to him for the overcoming of artists block. Perhaps he might see a beggar on the street, or a guard smoking against a street lamp, perhaps even a woman of fine prestige out for an afternoon stroll. Just something to inspire his artistic flame. How could he light a flame of creativity when he lacked the wick…

 

Being Royal Physician, Sokolov had a few guards available to him. Trained bodyguards, although he didn't know them to any personal extent. He knew one was a local all his life and the other came from Morley - but aside from this he knew nothing.  
He wasn't being antisocial of course, he loved company in all shapes and sizes. The guards however where under strict orders to keep a business-only disposition, so Sokolov's advances of sharing a drink or joining their game of cards were only ever met with polite decline or awkward interaction.  
These men were not the type of people Sokolov had any wish to befriend let alone be any more than acquaintances through employ alone.  
They tailed him by roughly 30 feet as he left his apartments, heading towards the nearest canal. It was spring and the air was cool, lightly brushing against his beard as Sokolov trailed up the water's edge. He looked down at his reflection, distorted with ripples as a skiff drove by, met with the exhaust fumes from its engine. Sokolov merely wafted the scent away. He'd smelt worse, and as a smoker: his lungs already had a resistance to such inhalation.  
He wiped his slate clean and began to think of new compositions of ideas for his eventual return home. He could kill an hour or two before then.  
Sokolov usually spent his weekends recovering from the cocktail parties held by the socialites of the Academy. Despite the prestigious nature of those who attended, it was impossible not to find wilder spirits among the studious pupils. Last week he’d been tied up is various meetings and correspondences - too busy to join the rampant merrymaking of his fellow philosophers. But now, with time on his hands, it was reasonable enough to sit in for a drink. He walked to the Kings Arms, a pub on the edge of the Wrenhaven River, facing away from the Estate District. Despite its more noble location, the pub hosted many middle-and-working-class individuals, the pub itself had been built into one of the arches of a disused railway bridge and wasn’t exactly a popular haunt for the inhabitants of the Estates.  
It was here that Sokolov had met and conversed with the young whaler Bundry Rothwild. He sat in a booth away from his bodyguards and ordered a pint of beer. He glassily looked around the room to see if he spotted any familiar faces. Obviously the pub was not as popular at noon as he’d imagined, ordering some steak and ale pie to fill the hole in his stomach.  
In the bar with him were all but a handful of customers. A washer woman and her husband, a maid - perhaps on break, a fisherman whose rod was sharing his table, and a grim-looking man whose nose was stuck in the newspaper. Sokolov thought to acquaint himself with one of them, perhaps providing the inspiration he needed to get back to work - but then: people watching was perhaps the most revealing of pastimes. Watching the mannerisms of those who sat about the room was most invigorating for the philosopher.

The newspaper reader lowered the tabloid to take a sip of his coffee, getting a better look at his face Sokolov almost thought he looked familiar. A student of his, perhaps? Before his ascension to Head: Sokolov had taught many classes at the Academy as a professor, it wasn’t impossible that he’d bump into an ex-student now and then? After all, Anton never forgot a face… Trying not to stare, he jogged his memory. Before he could make a decision about whether to upstart a conversation, a shoddily arranged waitress brought him his food. When he looked back towards the man he was gone, with all but a folded copy of the Dunwall Courier and several coins left in his wake. Anton snuffed the thought from his mind and tucked in. If he were to remember: it’d come to him. How many of his students had scars, after all?


	2. Fit for a King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokolov stood over the bedside of Euhorn Kaldwin, stethoscope pressed against his chest.

Sokolov stood over the bedside of Euhorn Kaldwin, stethoscope pressed against his chest. 

After having finished at the Kings Arms, Sokolov had returned to his apartment where he was to find that a courier had been waiting for him, with two Royal Guards and a railcar to escort him immediately to Dunwall Tower.   
Now in the private chambers of the Emperor, Sokolov pottered about the room, placing his blood-ox-leather bag on the chair beside the bed, he rummaged through it and found a small amber jar of laudanum and poppy tincture.   
“Take this to help you sleep,” Sokolov commanded.   
While Euhorn held the power in the room, everyone present awaited Sokolov’s instruction on baited breath. 

***

“Jessamine, control yourself!” Her father tittered as his daughter stuck out a tongue towards her Royal Protector. Corvo sheepishly ignored the gesture, eyes darting between Jess and her father, he continued standing to attention within the palace gardens.   
The emperor sighed, “You’re a twenty year old woman now, perhaps you can stop with the childish facial expressions?”   
“Perhaps,” Jessamine smirked.   
It was roundabout lunchtime and the three were out enjoying the sun. Euhorn sat in a deckchair under the gazebo, while Jess had her own chair: she sat on the wall overlooking the river. Between them was a small table on which rested a pitcher of ice-cold peach juice. This weather was warm for the Kaldwin's, Corvo tightened his jacket, more familiar with the southern air. When he was sure her father wasn’t looking, he flicked his eyes back to Jessamine. She joked with the Emperor on matters which were less than trivial, but for a young woman who was unlikely to become Empress anytime soon, she felt she could escape the tension her father might feel. When she laughed her face lit up like the night’s sky during one of Lord Boyle’s parties - just as bright, but twice as beautiful. 

“Now Jessamine, when you’re Empress-”   
“Oh, don’t start that…”   
“When you’re Empress, you’re going to have to uptake responsibility. You’re a kind, noble princess of the Isles, but you’re lacking maturity. Don’t think your tutors don’t tell me your commentary on lectures,” he said, wagging a finger with a smile.   
Corvo watched as Euhorn stood up - on reaching his full height he wobbled, planting a hand on the table beside him, he stared into the void for what felt like forever before he brushed the feeling off and stepped to Jessamine’s side. Clamping his hands over her shoulders he kissed her cheek, a slight struggle was made as his moustache scratched her cheek bone. Diligently he looked out across the river, “Look, Jessamine, look at all the progress our family has done to this city. I never expected to become the man I am today, I thought I would be lucky be a lord for the rest of my days, but here we are.”   
“Who knew an assassination would lead to such prosperity,” Jess joked cynically.   
“You know too well that it could’ve very easily gone the other way. Oh, what would your mother say if she could see you now, I wonder? Heh, she’d probably be proud I imagine. You’re very much like her, you know? Horrible jokes and all!” He turned his back to her, pouring himself a glass from the pitcher, “I think I’ll take a walk through the gardens if you’d like to join me? I promise I won’t talk to you anymore about responsibility. Perhaps instead you can tell me how your studies are going…”   
Jessamine simpered, shaking her head as her father raised an eyebrow before turning away and down the stairs into the main garden. “See you in a moment,” she called after him, Corvo saluting as he passed. 

Alone, Jessamine beckoned Corvo up to the gazebo, she took herself and sat in her deckchair, pouring herself a glass of juice.   
She looked up to Corvo, who understood the expression and pulled a small flask out of his pocket. Jess unscrewed the lid and poured some of the contents into her glass.   
Crossing her legs, she smiled up to him, “You look particularly good today, although the bags under your eyes are rather obvious.”   
“I was-”   
“Cleaning your sword?”   
“Something like that.”   
The pair shared a telling look, being fortunate there was nobody else around to witness it.   
“You don’t look tired at all,” Corvo said, admiring Jess’ face in the soft sunlight.   
She simply smiled, nodding her head down humbly before looking back up, squinting as the Serkonan blocked the sun with his gorgeous but tired face.   
Before they could do anything more there was a scream from below in the gardens, Corvo and Jess ran over to the railing to see Emperor Euhorn Kaldwin lying face flat on the cobblestones. He wasn’t moving.   
Corvo looked to Jess, but found she’d already turned and bolted down the stairs to her father’s side. The gardener who had screamed turned and called for the guard, crouching next to Jessamine who willingly accepted her help to turn him onto his back. The gardener folded up her cardigan providing it as a pillow. This was going to be the start of a long day.

***

Sokolov closed his doctors bag, tools away and medical prescriptions out. He talked with Lord Byron about the nature of his majesty’s fall. As reported by a window cleaner, they’d seen his majesty suffer a sudden collapse in the palace gardens during their usual work schedule - it had been fortunate that the gardener had walked through when she did, much sooner alerting the guards than the cleaner admitted he could.  
Byron was the designated regent if ever Euhorn travelled or took ill for extended periods of time, while Princess Jessamine was also able to undertake her father’s responsibilities, Sokolov had said that this was not as serious as that.   
Did Sokolov expect his majesty to be as right as rain within a few days? Probably not. Sokolov kept the details to himself, more or less. While it was his duty as Royal Physician to share such knowledge, the highest ranking individual was now bound to bed by his own orders. The most he could do was to ensure he stayed informed on the condition of his majesty, and that his orders were followed to the letter by the nurses looking after him.   
What he saw in Euhorn Kaldwin was a disposition he’d seen all but a few times before, though he was certain he might uncover more details of it at the academy.   
He quickly wrote a letter and passed it on to a courier, telling the lad to run to the Academy and hand over this letter to the head-archivist, and return with the books provided. For now, he decided it would be best to remain on palace grounds to oversee the medical care personally. The butler found a small room for him and ensured that any equipment he might need would be provided. 

Sokolov had barely fallen asleep before he heard a knocking at his door, while he had reason to fear the worse, the knocking was rather light. Perhaps a maid asking if he wished for something to help him sleep, or some tea, assuming he would stay awake to find some miracle cure.   
Only he opened the door to find Princess Jessamine Kaldwin. She looked rather pale, wrapped in a dressing gown. It was a few seconds before she asked if she might come in. Sokolov, a little in shock at the source of his awakening, stepped aside and allowed her to enter. She sat in the armchair while he sat back on his bed. Aware of his current informal state, he pulled his tweed jacket on, otherwise wearing nothing more than a vest and striped pyjama trousers.   
“Princess Jessamine,” he began, “Please. How can I be of service?”   
“My father… is he. Is he alright?”   
How to answer, Sokolov thought. A loaded question; a sensitive question.   
“Currently no, I’m afraid he is not. He is…” Sokolov sighed. “How to put this to a young lady such as yourself…”   
“Sokolov, Anton, please. I’m not a child anymore, I just turned 20 last month, I’m old enough to be told these things.”   
He paused. He’d always hated bearing bad news, but oh so often he had to: “Your father is suffering from failure of the heart, I’m afraid. In his past examinations I’ve noticed a deterioration which I previously associated with age, however now I realise that my previous assessment was… lacking.”   
Jessamine scowled, “I thought you were supposed to be the Royal Physician? Head to the Academy of Natural Philosophy? And you’re telling me you’ve-- you’ve misdiagnosed my father?!”   
“Jessamine, please,” He failed to take her hand, as she pulled away in protest. “It’s common for men your fathers age to suffer some of these conditions, medical science can only be so precise I’m afraid - even his blood pressure has vastly altered since I last measured it. Please, you must understand I am not to blame? We cannot foresee all of life's details?”   
Sokolov knelt beside the chair as Jessamine turned to face him, now more obvious she had been crying.   
“Will he… will he get better?”   
Sokolov knew the answer. It was a downward spiral from here - either he continued to rule, a weakened and changed man, or he’d slowly fade from this world… Could Sokolov bring himself to lie when he knew he ought to tell the truth? He’d have to meet the void in the middle.  
“I think it’s best that you retire for the night, Princess. It’s awfully late, but I assure you I have an alarm set, and as soon as I wake I will see to improving your father’s condition. Now please, go and get some rest. We might discuss this tomorrow after breakfast.”   
Sokolov persuaded Jessamine to get some sleep, he turned in bed, partly ashamed. But then he was used to lying - just not under these circumstances.   
He had a deep love for Jessamine. He knew any advances would never be met by such a fine woman, but he still cared for her fondly. He was happy loving her from afar. He’d much rather be at the sidelines guiding her hand than in the foreground causing any regal nonsense. He’d tutored her plenty of times before he’d become Royal Physician, a professor leant on request from the Academy, he’d seen her young mind form ideas both cynical and beautiful. 

While he'd babbled about theorems of social political change in the Empire, she'd tried to hide her boredom while scribbling doodles upon the pages of her binder. Doodles which caught Sokolov's eye. He didn't ask where she'd seen the mark of the Outsider before, but he'd never forget flicking through the corners of her homework. 

Breakfast came, Sokolov dissecting his Full Gristolian Breakfast when Princess Jessamine and her Royal Protector joined him at the palace dining table. She sat at the head of the table in her father's seat as a maidservant came through with her food.   
Sokolov hastened his meal, hoping he'd be able to depart from the breakfast table before he was questioned further on the state of her father.   
Surprisingly he was left alone to enjoy his Blood Ox sausages, Jessamine talking in hushed whispers with Corvo, almost ignoring Sokolov's presence as if they'd never spoken the night before.   
Rather than rudely ignoring the pair, Sokolov wiped the trim of his beard and stood to face the princess.   
“Good morning, Princess,” he said with a bow, “Forgive me, my mind was wandering the paths of action concerning your father.”   
Minutes passes as Jessamine’s cutlery clinked against the plate, forkfuls of egg and blood-sausage passing her lips, eyes down against the table as she perused the front page of a newspaper set before her.   
A bead of sweat trickled down Sokolov’s forehead before she finally wiped her lips, eyes staring now into his very soul: “Then don’t let us keep you, Anton.”   
He felt a relief, but also as if his own heart had been stopped, as if she had tossed an icicle through his chest like a javelin.  
Sokolov bowed, his meal unfinished, he folded his napkin and straightened his knife and fork before departing from the room. 

Shutting the door behind him, Sokolov stared out into the hallway. Clasping his hands, he breathed in heavily through his nose. His eyelids closed as his mind expanded with the passing of air. For the first time in his life he was at a loss.   
First artists block, now physicians block?   
This was never going to do… 

A courier was sent to the Academy for a qualified nurse, as Sokolov thumbed through a set of medical journals, Emperor Euhorn Kaldwin slowly breathing in his bed.   
Absolute bed-rest was the primary of Sokolov’s prescriptions. His Majesty should remain in bed for two to three weeks, with a doctor on hand for six weeks to administer morphine and other remedies to help alleviate the pain.  
His majesty stirred as Sokolov whittled down his pencil, creating a new entry in a rarely used pocket journal, pages made darker only through the tobacco in his pockets.   
After the six weeks, he thought: then what? Continuing with his daily life wouldn't be easy, and Anton was not going to encourage a dying man to act as if he were immortal. 

Sokolov thumbed the entries of the diary, examining his past appointments and responsibilities. He chortled silently as he passed his reminder for his induction as Royal Physician. Days long since passed.  
He got a good rub from the scribbles he'd done once. Trying to show a whore why the human spine could be so flexible when worked correctly. He tittered, turning the page on his shoddy anatomy, pencil lead more by the rum than his hand.   
Throughout this book there were several pages dedicated to a certain topic. A pass time of his, but also an obsession. Surrounded by various markings, notes scratched into the page, was the mark of the Outsider. Sokolov stared deep into the ink of the page, as if the mark were staring back.   
He wondered if the Outsider was watching him now. Mocking him. Mocking his silent plea for attention.   
Sokolov had had this obsession since he was just a boy. He admitted it lapsed here and there - you can hardly think about getting the boon of an occult God when you have art examinations to pass. But as a boy he'd dream of the Outsiders touch, just to look upon him would be muse enough for Sokolov. Hell to the Overseers and their scriptures. The Outsider could not be explained by science. That was his muse.   
For him he twisted the blade of the statement: These things could not be explained by science yet. 

He remembered a conversation had with Roseburrow just the week before, stating that if something could not be explained by science: it was just a new field of study. No one would've seen all the scientific intrigue and potential in whale oil before Edmund came along - now entire seminars are held on its uses.   
He yawned, rising to stoke the fire, wandering to the balcony overlooking the palace foyer.   
As if he had timed it, in walked the nurse he'd sent for, as well as two couriers carrying in another box of medical journals as carefully as if it were a litter seating his majesty himself.   
Sokolov rubbed his beard again, a mannerisms symbolic of many things. He considered himself a natural philosopher above all else, nevertheless he found in some lines of work he had to act like a con man. All these books, all his equipment: all for show. He knew he, as Royal Physician, could help alleviate the pain, he could help make his majesty comfortable, but unless the void permitted him to turn the fabric of time… a life saving cure would likely not be developed for decades. Of course, he was Anton Sokolov, and he was going to ensure some oil was already between the gears of industry by the time it was! 

He felt his conscious flip between realism and optimism as he examined Euhorn’s body, sleeping softly on his duck-feather pillows.   
Throughout the day, between his Majesty's waking periods, Anton, with the help of his nurse, Hepburn, shaved clean the royal moustache and ensured any scabs, bruises or cuts were not present on the body - those which were were noted down, not to provide any correlation to the illness, merely to monitor in case of infection - Sokolov explains.   
As expected, few cuts were registered. The royal barber liked his job too much to scratch the chin of an Emperor. The only major bruising had been where his majesty had fallen in the gardens. Sokolov took some bloods, labeling each in their own individual glass phile.   
Engaging his majesty, Sokolov went through some basic breathing exercises, along with a full examination of his mind and body.   
“Anton, please, I'm feeling much better… I have duties I ought to be attending to. There are blueprints I have to give the go-ahead for.”  
Sokolov brushed back the royal receding hairline in order to examine the cranium, “Not to worry, your Majesty. Your regent has ensured the screening of the blueprints will be rescheduled to suit a time where you're more presentable. I myself, as head of the Academy, have seen the blueprints already. You have nothing to fear.”   
Sokolov relinquished Euhorn’s head, as he pottered back and two from the desk to the bed, making notes in a fresh medical journal.   
“I would advise his majesty has plenty of rest.”  
“Rest, Anton? You've already prescribed me two months of rest. How much rest could a man need?”  
“Never enough - I have found.”   
He turned back to the desk and sat momentarily to make some notes. An audiograph sat between them, Sokolov previously having used it to record his medical exam, now it was surrounded by punch cards of music - supposedly to be moved to the bedside table for the Emperors convenience.   
“Anton… Sokolov… Be straight with me? This illness? I won't live to see Jessamine hit 30, will I?”  
“Do you want me to be blunt?”  
“I knighted you as Royal Physician. Gave a speech at your ascension to the Head of the Academy of Natural Philosophy… please.”   
“This illness… it's more than just a cold, beyond whooping cough… your Majesty, this disease is in your blood, I'm afraid. You're suffering from failure of the heart, yes, but it is impossible to accurately and logically judge if you are to get better or worse.”  
He pauses, watching Euhorn grasp on his words before continuing:  
“It is very possible that you will live a shorter life than you had perhaps intended. But you may yet see your daughter grow old. Marry perhaps. But I cannot lie to you, that life would be a fickle one… That being said… I have high hopes for you.”   
Euhorn swilled the saliva in his mouth like the washerwoman might her wash. His closed his eyes, cussing under his breath. He looked uneasily towards Sokolov, eyes lost in a mix of sadness and anger -- but how else are you to feel when you're told that you have a 50:50 chance of living.   
“I assure you, along with my own examination, I have contacted some of the best Doctors in the Isles. We have a surgeon coming from Wei Gong, a biologist from Morley, and a I can even ask Galvani if it pleases you?”   
He thought for a minute. “Thank you, Anton… I would like some time to rest now and think this over. Would you send for Jessamine?”

Euhorn provided Sokolov with the rest of the day off, being handled by the nurse, and a few capable doctors if trouble should arise.   
He lay in his bed, not even having removed his jacket. He smoked upwardly, tipping ash carefully into an ashtray beside him.  
Often in his artists circle, besides painting, they would have discussions. Discussions of deep and interesting thought. Sometimes they were profound, other times it was merely to see who could do the best animal impression - not so deep and interesting, he though…   
That being said, they did talk on topics from the sombre to the bizarre. As his smoke circled to the ceiling, his mind circled, pirouetting back to a discussion on life and death. Did the soul get reclaimed by the cosmos? Was it all just void? He stubbed the cigarette out against the bed knob, flicking it into the ashtray as he went to support his head from behind.   
As said, he'd always seen the Void as a science they didn't understand yet. But sometimes he felt agnostic to the idea, especially on the topic of life and death. He knew everything he could about life, from birth, developing as a child, the beating and changing of internal organs, the skeletal composition of man and woman - but death?  
On death he knew nothing. The person dies leaving a corpse and that corpse rots away. Hardly a science.   
But what was on the other side of death? He'd once subscribed to the idea that death was the end of the line, and there was nothing there after. But if the Outsider could walk and talk beyond our reality, what else could? He'd examined various phenomena over the years, both on his expeditions to Pandicia, but also during his time across the Isles. The world was full of unexplained secrets. 

His mind brushed back to his apartment and the canvas he'd left there.   
He sulked. Pushing himself from the bed, he swivelled to face the room, and without a word to anyone he calmly strolled out of Dunwall Tower. 

There was one thing Sokolov needed right now, and that was a drink.   
A whiskey, I think.


End file.
